In late July 2010, Ben Jealous, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, denounced Shirley Sherrod, a black woman whom Jealous said "in her position at USDA [the Department of Agriculture]... mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race." Jealous knew this because a right-wing website told him so.
Ben Jealous committed two mistakes, and one crime. First, Ms. Sherrod was not working for the USDA at the time of the incident, but for an organization specifically dedicated to black farmers; and in fact, according to the white farmer, Sherrod saved his farm. But what if Sherrod had said what the Right Wing claimed she said? What if Sherrod really had not used "the full force" of her office to help the white farmer?
That's not "mistreatment," even if Ben Jealous pretends it is. It was even argued in the Supreme Court that "a police officer who came upon four people beating someone could stand by without intervening".
Still Jealous was not done. "Her actions were shameful," he said of Sherrod, and, channeling Senator Joe McCarthy, Jealous promised, "We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event [where Sherrod told her story] and take any appropriate action."
Interesting. According to Jealous's own definition, I was "mistreated"―by the NAACP. Specifically, by Ben Jealous.
On November 20, 2002, when I was a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, I wrote in the city newspaper that a relatively new, local, taxpayer-funded statue honoring the founder of the Ku Klux Klan should be torn down. The death threats commenced.
Both the head of my university, Gordon Gee, and the university spokesman, Michael Schoenfeld, defended the Klan founder―Gee called the Klan founder's supporters "old friends," and denounced me for having criticized the Confederacy. Obama White House Fellow Samar Ali, then a student at Vanderbilt, even said that, in criticizing the Confederacy, I had engaged in "hate speech," that criticism of the Confederacy was "racist." Math Department chairman Mike Mihalik said any hostile letters he received about me from Klan supporters would be put in my file and forwarded to the dean, but not shown to me, and Dean Richard McCarty subsequently threatened my job.
As a Life Member, I went to the NAACP for help.
The head of the NAACP in the southeast, Reverend Charles White, was apprised of the situation but said the NAACP could only take action after considering the matter at its next board meeting―in three months. The president of the Nashville chapter of the NAACP, Reverend Sonnye Dixon, even said it could be good for Vanderbilt to have a building called "Confederate Memorial Hall" on its campus.
Ben Jealous's wife, Lia Epperson-Jealous, worked for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and at my request informed a colleague of hers, attorney John R. Harper; but when I asked Harper for help, he did nothing. Ben Jealous later blamed me for having "asked for" the attack.
The Nashville NAACP did, however, give Gordon Gee an award in 2003. Which he declined to pick up.
Overall, no one in the NAACP or the NAACP Legal Defense Fund gave me "the full force of what they could do."
Will Ben Jealous call the actions of Ben Jealous "shameful"? Will Ben Jealous call for an investigation into the actions of the Nashville NAACP?
No, because you have the right not to do everything you can for someone.
Jealous's second mistake is that the NAACP is not the National Association for the Abolition of Color Prejudice. It is not the NAACP's mission to protect the civil rights of white farmers, just as it is not the mission of the American Poultry Association to investigate whether cell phones cause gingivitis. In theory, if there were such creatures as black supremacists, the NAACP would represent them, too, over, say, Barack Obama's mother or Ben Jealous's father.
But that wasn't Jealous's crime. His normally sluggish organization, which took three months even to discuss what to do, if anything, when a Life Member was receiving death threats from Klan supporters, reacted in one day when racist liars, who wanted a black woman's head, ordered the heir of W. E. B. Du Bois to step and fetch it.
NAACP president Ben Jealous should resign for slavishly serving right-wing racists, and the now embarrassingly useless NAACP should disband.
Although I like the work that Kevin Myles is doing in the Witchita branch, over all the organization is not one that has sparked my interest in decades.
Jealous needs to man up and admit that he stepped into the trap by failing to take 43 minutes of his time to view Sherrod's remarks. You are only snookered if you do not have the opportunity to take a shot after your opponents move. This story would be entirely different if Jealous had handled his end of the business differently. I'm equally turned off by his whine about the organization being victimized. That is due to his response.
I live in Columbus-home of The O-State. Gordon Gee has never been impressive to me. He comes across as a man who is working hard to cover over his inner feelings on a lot of subjects. I am not surprised that he has friends in ugly places.
You are actually the first member of the organization that I've seen call Jealous out for this incident.
While others have demanded his resignation, I find it more disturbing that others are not taking him to task over this.
It appears in 2002, he requested the word "Confederate" not be on the title of this particular hall that was being debated. He then came under quite a bit of fire for wanting change. Around this time there were also charges his wife was smoking marijuana in his office? And strangely, he seems to have support among minority leaders and students.
Though I'm not discrediting your personal experience, nowhere is it to be found where he is rubbing elbows with the Klan. If anything, he came under attack from the southern bureaucrats. Obviously, your take is one that is more intimate, as is with Jealous.
But then that brings up Jealous's refusal with you, which may have been based on the credibity of this man, Gordon Gee.
Sherrod let bygones be bygones, and her defamation suit is directed at Breitbart not the NAACP, USDA, or Obama. That in itself says something about where focus needs to be.
FYI. I wouldn't take very seriously anything Gina has to say on her blog, for there is nothing constructive but nonstop ranting dressed up as genuine concern for AA females. She's got a strange mixture of black conservatives using the blog for their own agenda, along with sincere folks . . .
This too shall pass.
http://www.latticetheory.net/media/pdf/Gee_Chapter_2.pdf
He has never publically criticized any of these groups nor has he ever criticized the Confederacy, to the best of my knowledge, whereas he and his spokesman did publically criticize and libel me, explicitly for having written the essay: the Vanderbilt spokesman even said that my essay was "rightly offensive to, and rejected by, most people." The essay was about how there should not be a statue honoring the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. In the end, Vanderbilt inexplicably surrendered to the Klan-supporting groups and the dorm remains to this day "Confederate Memorial Hall." This is all public information: try Lexis Nexis.
My concern is for the larger agenda during a critical time when our vote counts. Coming from the right and being a part of TParty politics Im aware first hand what the consequences will be should we allow our squabbling to be divisive. Having Jealous resign doesn't seem the best strategy. I'd rather focus my efforts eliminating the real danger to our sense of freedom, which is most certainly the extreme right. Only have to witness their fanatical energy and the brainwashing that goes with it from the ridiculous challenge of the 14th amendment or their own "throwing another conservative republican under the bus, for some bogus conspiracies concerning the Obama admin. ( Rep. Inglis outed from South Carolina for insane nutwinger fantasies . . .).
I've been approached by a few neo nazis who claim affinity with the TParty and do attend the rallies. Like most, i looked the other way, thinking well, ya know they're only signs. Not true. Of those that are conservative AAs i empathize with their wanting a change, but they're not being honest. And that baffles me. Jealous's speech, despite whatever misgivings he has was the first to challenge. We need to pick our battles wisely.
Just for sheer stupidity he should resign. Also he made absurd claims that this was caused by the need to respond quickly, even instantaneously. Why? To avoid being criticized by Glenn Beck?
DuBois, Robert Williams, Thurgood Marshall....a great tradition. What a shame.
I wish there was a solution that completely changed the structure. Or hell, I even feel like if the NAACP President took the lead, that others would follow. Maybe you should run for NAACP President, you most definitely have the credentials.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/314/314_5th_col_return_mulatto.html
Ben Jealous committed the same error that you have committed in the past, that error is jumping to certain conclusions without knowing all the facts.
You jumped to the conclusion that by my being a Confederate that I somehow must be a racist.
I think Dr Farley, that you are a little over sensitive when it comes to race. Some of what you have experienced I think you may have brought on yourself. I'm not advocating that you run from a fight, or a just cause, but if a white man cuts you off in traffic, it may just be that it was an accident, and not because you are black.
Their error was to react before doing their due diligence. They were as manipulated as Ms. Sherrod.
If not for the NAACP, the dialog would still be the "reverse racism" and a woman's reputation would still be in tatters.
If you are going to label the NAACP as feckless, what do you label this president who is terrified of the Right and has yet to stand up to them?
And Obama is as disgusting and cowardly as Jealous.
I do disagree that the NAACP needs to disband though. They need to find their way in these times and not be afraid to stare racism down in the face especially since they have facts on their side. Why back down from the tea party racism comments when we have numerous photos with obviously racist signs? Why back down when the NY times poll shows that only 1 percent of the movement is African American while an overwhelming 89 percent is white? Where is the NAACP in calling for the black farmers in Pigford V. Vilsack in getting their settlement money?
They have come a long way from the times of their founding, and they need to be more forceful. A job still needs to be done by them and they aren't doing it currently.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Register/dec09_02/20021209farley.html